Sleeping Beauty
by Girls In White Dresses
Summary: Someday somewhere there is a princess waiting for you to sweep her off her feet and carry her off in the regions of "happily ever after."


**So apparently you get docked points in a debate if you laugh but you don't if you are confused about what gender your opponents are? Yes I'm BACK AGAIN! :D **

**We just had two really big tests that took over two hours to complete 0_0 hooray for typing! My hands cant write anymore. Byakuya is really really OOC in this story but I'm just assuming he was different when he was younger.. so im sorry if it offends anyone :)**

**First person perspective is really, uh, hard for me to write so.. feedback? I'm not a professional T_T**

**REVIEWS ARE AWESOME COUGH please review COUGH **

**Disclaimer: No I don't own Bleach and Im not even going to ask santa because its hard for him to break into our house without burning himself and YES I CAN CHARGE HIM FOR BREAKING AND ENTERING**

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><p>It was cold.<p>

I galloped as fast as I could on my gleaming white stallion, but the wind, the cursed wind howled and bit at me, cold, cold, cold…..

I thought of what my destination was and with renewed vigour I urged my horse faster still, the wind making my long dark hair billow like some bizarre flag. The small, dilapidated houses and shops melted past me, the world blurring into one colour. The ground was bare, grainy and pale, with no sure road or even a trail. It was dusty, though, and I coughed, my eyes streaming from the wind and the dust.

Cold.

But, surely, it would all be worth it in the end. She was waiting… waiting for years and years. I would be the one to save her, carry her off on my white stallion for a "happily ever after."

I needed to do this; many others had tried and failed, but they didn't have my determination. They didn't know who waited behind freezing stone, way up high, behind soft, willowy curtains made out of fabric that felt like water.

I did.

I crouched down low over my horse, promising to myself…. This time, I would save her. She was waiting… living on nothing but hopes, with no one but the cold, unyielding walls and floor for company. A thin slit of light was her only connection to the outside world. I had reached the end of all civilization; what lay before me was simply vast, unknown lands and the wind's whispering voice. I've been traveling for a week now.

All I have to do is push open the door, walk up the winding, spiralling staircase, and then listen to her haunting, mournful, sorrow filled voice and not go insane. There's stories of her, you know- stories of enchantment and magic. They say her voice can turn people to stone. They say she's a hideous monster that eats handsome princes, or maybe a locked up princess with beauty so enticing any man immediately falls for her. You should know none of that's true.

She's just Hisana. The girl that manages to destroy everything when she cooks and has a freaky obsession with an imaginary rabbit. Well, I probably should describe her smile, her kindness, and most of all, her beautiful voice that makes me cry. But it's not really necessary. There'll be lots of time, eternity, when I rescue her from that awful tower with stones that smile cruelly in the dim lights.

Anything to distract me from this cold, cold, wind and the burning in my ears, and the pounding of the horse hooves. It's still a long way… so I might as well ramble on. I'm a prince, as you may have already guessed. Brave, handsome, blah blah blah... not really. I'm Byakuya Kuchiki and I'm just the youngest of 16 sons. That's just great, right? When I said I wanted to do this they all looked at me like I'm crazy. I'm _not. _

I just want to see her again. She disappeared when I was ten… just vanished, gone with the dying rays of the setting sun. She was a servant but I liked talking to her. She was the one who would smile at me while putting fresh flowers in vases. She was different. I felt like I belonged when I was with her. Not _prince, _but her friend. I don't know why she wasn't born a princess. She looked like one, walked like one, sang like one… Sometimes I'd hear her singing in the early faded dawn, those hauntingly sad songs that still echo strangely in my head.

Everyone else, my brothers, father, mother, treated her like dirt. They didn't even care when she disappeared. She was different from all of us… eyes that you could get lost in and singing that makes you cry. Sometimes I wake up and hear her singing in the distance so much like the tinkling of silver bells. Sometimes I wake up and my cheeks are wet, silvery straight lines that glow in the darkness of night.

I hear the stories, you know. Year after year I train in the hopes of being able to rescue her one day. Trolls, witches… all stories have a little grain of truth in them, no matter how small, how slight, if there's that one sliver of a chance in the huge, huge world… I dismount, carefully, my legs aching from the long never-ending ride and my eyes still watering. Hours on end…. faster, faster, and still ever faster. My eyes are scratched with tiredness, the roaring of the furious wind still tearing my ears apart. I pat my horse anxiously. I left without saying goodbye to anyone; I left without even knowing if I'd return. Just for her, to see her little half-smile and faded eyes that reflect despair.

The door was already open, a huge chunk of stone that led the way into murky darkness. The tall, pale tower broke the light blue sky and disappeared in the faint clouds. That was strange. It was supposed to be closed…

I entered and lit a flickering lantern from my saddlebags and held it delicately in my hand. I took careful steps, one at a time, up, up… whispers, dry and revolting, and something feathery stroked my face. I shuddered… but it was all worth it. The darkness was suffocating- I felt like I couldn't breathe. I clung to my lantern, that only sliver of hope in that dark, dark, place. It was eerily quiet and my breathing sounded deafening. Strange…

It was sickeningly damp. Dark secrets for dark places. Warm, wet darkness like a thick velvet blanket. Whispers, the scattering of mice feet, soft, freezing laughter far off in the distance… The stairs seemed to reach on forever… I kept going. One at a time. Up, up, around. This is all for her. Even now her face is fading, just a half-remembered memory that crumbled with the sands of time. I know I'll recognize her when I see her, though. This is the only thing that keeps me going

I just want to see her again. And this time, I won't let her go.

_Someday somewhere there's a princess waiting for you, waiting for you to sweep her off her feet and carry her off in the regions of "Happily ever after."_

_Waiting for you…_

The stairs finally even out onto a cold, stone hallway. I see a faint, glowing light at the end of the thin corridor. My heart pounds, throws itself against my rib cage like a frantic bird trying to escape a cage. I walk slowly, taking my time, my throat dry. I'm sure when I see her I'll be speechless again. The light grows stronger and ever nearer.

I walk through the open archway.

There's a bed, with elaborate carvings and a dainty, curving frame. A bed for a princess with drawn curtains the nearly the same shade of brilliant violet as her eyes. Nothing else in the square, plain, cold room. I can see a faint shadow, someone is behind the curtains, and my heart skips a beat. I walk across the last few feet, the most important distance of my life, my soft steps echoing loudly in the deathly silence.

I reach the bed and hear nothing. Slowly, slowly, I pull back the curtains, delicately, carefully….

She's the soft, faintly wistful smile so much like the wind on a spring day. She's the silhouette of the girl in my dreams, pale shadows that whisper softly in my mind, crisscrossing in the dark, lonely spaces. She's the servant girl with bare feet, her thin ankles straining up to hold the weight of her whole self. Sometimes, I see her as she is now, eyes peacefully closed, so much like the princesses of fairy tales.

Her long black lashes rest against her pale cheeks, and her ebony black hair is longer than I remember, falling perfectly around her face. She looks like the delicate paintings in storybooks, bedtime stories that I have long forgotten.

But something's wrong.

There's not one bit of colour left in her face, it's the colour of bleached bone. There is no rise and fall of breath, no warmth. There is a deep, blooming flower on her white yukata, crimson, growing larger by the minute, spreading its stark petals, tickling her neck and face. I reach out, refusing to even consider the possibility-

_No._

I caress her freezing cold face, knowing this

I will remember this fairy tale, remember the ending, write it down to make sure that if someday the memories vanish from the head, it will make sure that the heart will not have forget.

She still has that wistful smile on her face, frozen in time. For as long as the end of time she'll lay here, waiting for perhaps a hundred years or more for the happy ending that will never come. This fairy tale will remain permanently etched in my mind for as long as I am part of this world. For as long as she waits for her "happily ever after." For as long as she waits for me….

She's as every bit a princess as she ever was, beautiful, even in death.


End file.
